My Reading Journey Backwards and Forwards

Tag: Time

Four Thousand Weeks

A book about time management for mortals by Oliver Burkeman

August 3, 2026

Started: July 31, 2026

Finished:

Reflections and Random Thoughts

I first listened to this book on Audible and now I’m reading it on Kindle. It was recommended by Raja Sekar, a Medium writer in an article titled “If You Can Only Read a Few Books this Year Read These Ten”. If you’re not a Medium subscriber you won’t be able to read it – but the list of 10 Books is in my Book Lists.

Insights

Key Take-Aways

Something Actionable

Is it actionable if it’s a stop doing? Stop trying to clear the decks. And stop believing you can get it all done if you just have the right tool, or software.

Review Title (star rating)

What Everyone Else Thinks

Amazon Reviews and Ratings

4.5 on Amazon with over 14,000 ratings.

I always look at the 1 star reviews first – usually they are pretty stupid, complaints about the quality of the paper or binding etc. but these reviews were surprisingly well written and impassioned. The folks who didn’t like this book really didn’t like it!

Goodreads Reviews and Ratings

4.2 on Goodreads with 139,000+ ratings.

Post Progress

37%

Edit

BooksNon-fiction

The Secret Pulse of Time

A Book about Life’s Scarcest Commodity By Klein Stefan

Reflections and Random Thoughts

When does now end?

“How long does the present last?”

I started this book in February 2024 and finished it in December 2024. I’m not sure it lives up to its name, but it was worth reading. It seems like it was mainly about the relativity of time when it goes slow and when it goes fast. He also talked about time and memory.

While reading it, I paid more attention to how I was spending my time; it got harder to enjoy playing my game – I tried considering what value the hour I had just lived had to me. What did I remember of it?

Insights

Key Take-Aways

As I read this book, I find myself paying more attention to how I spend my time – considering more seriously if I’m willing to give my life to the activity I’m engaged in.

Everyone says that time is money, but it isn’t.

Recollections vs Memory

According to this book, children acquire their first conscious recollections at about 18 months.

A recollection is not the same as a memory; I looked this up because I thought they were the same and replaced the word recollection in the sentence above with memory, rendering it inaccurate.

Recollection is the active process of retrieving specific memories, while memory is the system or ability to remember something, which begins to develop in humans at birth. A baby can recognize its mother’s face within 2 hours.

Something Actionable

This is a stop doing. Stop spending so much time playing my phone game.

Especially during times, I could be doing something I can see later.

What Everyone Else Thinks

This book only has 82 reviews on Amazon, 3% 1 star and 62% 5 star. On Good Reads, it has 23 ratings, an average of 4.17, and only three reviews.

Looking at the 1-star review on Amazon, I see that it’s a complaint about formatting with no discussion of content.

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